The Third Time's The Charm
by Jadeblueafterglow17
Summary: Summary: How many times can you look down the barrel of a gun and not face its wrath? #TeamJamal
Author: Jadeblueafterglow17 a.k.a. ichabbie_crane

Third Time's the Charm Jamal P.O.V.

Spoilers for Season 1: Sins of the Father & Season 2: Penultimate episode "Rise by Sin" Do not tread any further if you have not seen those episodes. Just thought I'd tell a little story from two points of view.

Disclaimer: I just can't help myself... I binge on Sleepy Hollow, Lucifer and Empire... JussieSmollett is enough to get anyone's creative juices flowing. But all these wonderful shows are owned by Fox, and damn it if they don't own my Roku too! I just borrow their lovely, delicious characters so don't sue me. No Hookups for Mal...Sorry, it messes up my fantasy!

Summary: How many times can you look down the barrel of a gun and not face its wrath? #TeamJamal

A gunshot is incredibly loud. You feel it much quicker than the sound actually ever reaches your ears. It's astounding.

I tried to stop it, stop it before the trigger was pulled. A watch? I didn't even have the watch anymore. I pawned it so I could pay my rent, eat, and make my music. It's amazing how far $5,000 can go these days on a watch nearly triple its value. The only people who even knew I had it were my dad and my brothers. I got it back when I made the money. It was a gift from my father even if that shine...nearly cost me my life.

Hmmphh. My brothers Andre and Hakeem.

One fantasizes about slitting my throat after I practically raised the little heathen, the other wil stop at nothing to get my father's company in his clutches.

My blood, my own brother wanted me beat up, injured. Hell I don't even know, maybe dead. I'm not bi-polar, I don't know what goes on in his head sometimes. A man was shot because of jealousy, he could have died.

I could have died.

Andre -  
Growing up I was Andre's punching bag. Dad let him, - said it would toughen me up to fight back. He was bigger, he was stronger. Did it work? Who knows? Now I'm older, wiser, fight my own battles by standing my ground. I stand up for what I believe in.

I can t bear to see someone get hurt. I still can't believe the first time I looked into the barrel of a gun, my own brother was behind it. Says he was pitting me against my brother hoping we'd fight to the death and the Empire would be his. He says he didn't mean for it to go as far as it did. He said he was sick.

I was an expenditure he was willing to lose. It was unreal. I felt sick.

Then he asked my forgiveness and was baptized to forgive his sins.

Is it really that easy brother?

He's is sick, but he's my brother. I can forgive, but I can't forget. The rest is between him and the Lord.

I love him no matter what. But I can't trust him. If you can't trust your brother, who can you trust? 

Lola-  
My Lola Bear...prettiest girl in all the world. That little girl is precious. Even when my heart was telling me, she couldn't be mine, I wanted it to be true. If she were mine, I'd have a beautiful daughter. Something to leave in this world except some music owned by mom and my pops. She lit up my whole world with her smile. Even though I was forced to marry her mother because it was the right thing to do at the time. Finding her seemed to complete my otherwise God shaded existence. Even though the situation caused me to lose another man I loved dearly, finally, it seemed, I'd done something right. She was with me. My life was falling into place.

Then in a blink of an eye Olivia returned...a strange man in tow, and my life as I knew it would once again be changed forever. As she stood before me whispering a desperate plea to help her, a demented tattoo on the strange man's arm catches my attention.

It's the scary bird. This bastard has tormented that sweet little girl.

I can only think of one thing, Keep him away from Lola. Kill him. Do whatever it takes.

Man up.

"You're the one she's scared of ...I should kick your ass"

"I should have smoked your ass." The scary bird replied as he pulled a gun from behind his waist band. No wonder Olivia whispered "help me."

If he shoots me that will give someone enough time to get to him before he can get to Lola. She is all that matters.

Before I knew it I had closed the distance between me and Scary Bird. The words "Do it" , bouncing from my lips.

He must be a true horror. I'd never seen so much fear in Olivia in all the years I'd known her.

She whispers my name just as he makes the connection I am the one he is looking for, and in an instance Death is staring me in the face yet again.

Another gun is pointed at my head, I urged myself forward toward the nuzzle till I felt the trembling steel against my temple. One flinch and it would all be over.

"Where's Lola?" Reggie screamed "Olivia is mine...and Lola is too... you took my girl, put a ring on her finger, put a baby in her... but she's mine."

"We were married Reggie, he's her father, we were together before you were my man...please don't do this."

I offer him watches...money, anything. I just want this lunatic away from my family, away from my baby girl. But it s not money he wants, it's her.

I'd die a 100 times if it meant that little girl was safe...even if she isn't mine. She has my heart.

As the hammer was dropped down I tried not to flinch as I looked into the eyes of my executioner but then it happened. A scuffle ensued and the words "Don't...stop...stop stop" echoed in my ears as my mother reached my side.

"I got you." were words whispered in my mind as my mother leapt to my defense wrestling with Reggie to save my shameful existence.

I couldn't believe it. It astounds me how quickly that woman can get into some shit. Now she stands before me with a gun pointed to her head.

My heart is pounding out of my chest. I was willing to die. But I can't lose her. Not when I just found her again. Not like this.

My father unweaved his web of lies right before me, as he leapt beside me. He begged the shooter to point his gun at him instead. I suppose he realized since he was dying, confessing that we all wouldn't be upset if he ended his miserable existence. Like we would see it as some great sacrifice. Like I would think he wanted to save me the way he stepped in for my mother the second her life was threatened and forgive him for the words he was about to utter.

I listened intently as he told of how he trapped me into marrying Olivia when I was a mere 18 years old, to try to "fix" me. In his eyes my homosexuality was still a fate worse than death. And when he knew the relationship was doomed to fail, he had sex with my then wife.

Lola is not my daughter he said.

She is my sister.

More lies.

My shock is short lived because this only further enrages the gunman as he pulls the trigger, my father's henchman doesn't skip a beat and puts a bullet in the skull of this miscreant as he falls to the floor; his death stare, ominous. Cold.  
As my dear father shouts that he has somehow saved my ass, I have my reasons to doubt this since he only stepped in when my mother put her life on the line to protect me. I didn't want her to, but if anyone would be willing to die to save me it would be her. Certainly not the master of lies, Luscious Lyon.

Hmm...Luscious Lyon...not even his real name. Dwight Walker is the biggest liar of them all. Even though I had to say goodbye to my sweet Lola again, I knew this time it was forever.

I would later find out that Lola was not my father's nor was she mine. She was someone else's child.

All of these lives thrown into hells fury for this mans need to "fix" me. My deviance so abnormal it forced him to try and mend what God made me. That which I am proud of. A life I can be happy with and pray that my creator seeks not to condemn me for my choices, but reward me for sharing my love with all his creatures.

My father.

People tell me I look just like my daddy.  
I always wanted to be him when I grew up.  
I know the lyric of every song he ever spoke.

" _At least you walk like a man."_ he once said to me on the steps of our first home.

Really? I must? I've followed your footfalls my whole life trying to keep up with your shadow. Hoping that if it fell on me, you might actually care for me, truly deeply ? as much as I love you.

I idolized that man. When my mother was stripped from my life and I could only see her through plated windows, and small harsh rooms, I tried to be the child he wanted me to be. But, I was never good enough.

Freda-

She knows what it is like to live in the shadow of a father who never understood her. She is so talented and has such a good heart, I feel ashamed that I once thought of her as a simple hood rat.

I told her it was time for her to leave Empire, and that we'd talk later about our next moves.

She was my friend, I would not abandon her as my father had.

I don't know how she put it all together so fast. How did she know what my father had done to her father? His true motives.

When I saw the streak of white moving through the crowds, I felt gooseflesh rise on my arms. I don't know what made me turn in time to see her break through the crowd at a run and raise the gun towards my family.

I don't know what made me turn around at that moment, whether it was intuition or whether I'd grown so close to Freda over the last few months we had become in sync.

How could I let this happen to her? How could I let her hurt my family?

Before I knew it I was racing towards her my hands raised pleading with her not to end her life this way.

"No...no...no...Stop Freda no!" The words stumbled from my lips as I tried to approach her. But in her eyes I didn't see my friend I d come to know and have tremendous respect for. I saw that evil again. That hurt little girl hiding behind a locked and loaded pistol aiming at my father.

 ** _I can't let you do that._**

 ** _It's not your place._**

 ** _He's not worth your soul. You can't do this._**

"No" my eyes pleaded but she was looking straight through me. Before I knew it a bright light flashed and I moved to block its path. At first I thought it was a camera, but when I felt the impact of something hard slamming into my gut, all I could do was try to catch my stolen breath as the world began to tilt. As I felt the recoil of the fire spread throughout my body, immediately tasted the blood in my throat, the last thing I saw before I fell was her face.

I called her evil when I first saw her.

But she's beautiful. She's so sad.

She realizes her mistake about a millisecond too late as her shoulders slumped forward. I didn't get to see what happened after that because suddenly the red carpet I had so happily tread upon earlier was coming up to greet me with frightening speed. I landed on my side and saw my mother hunched over my father who laid on the carpet mere feet away from me.

I'm no hero, I'm no savior. I didn't really take the bullet for my father. The person I was trying to save was Freda. I was trying to save her from the life that got her father killed. I know that anger she was feeling. Losing her dad, that feeling of not being good enough.

I know it. Damn, she could be my sister I know it so well.

The life that was stolen from her by my father. It wasn't worth sacrificing.

"Mom! Mom!" my kid brother was shaking me and screaming at me as if that was my name. Suddenly an angel of gold was barreling towards me and landed at my right side as I clutch my left. She has my head in her hands and has muscled her blue faux fur stole under my head.

Even as I hear my mother scream my name, so filled with terror that I have caused her, I think of him.

"Jamal my baby...look at me, please keep your eyes on me. Say something." She screams slapping my face.

As loud as I can muster I manage Dad ok? Is...he K?"

"He's fine baby...hush, focus on me...keep your eyes open Jamal!"

I glance to my left and see my baby brother. He's lost as he clutches my shoulder with such force it s painful. I'm grateful I can feel it at all because the fire in my now open belly from a misplaced bullet has torn it apart. I try to clutch at the growing red stain on my suit but it s too much. It hurts to lay flat so I curl on my side. My eyes close of their own volition and when they open again I am moving, no longer at the ASA awards it seems.

 _ **My chest hurts, it hurts to breathe**_.

"Mom, I'm okay. I'm alright." I tried to console her if not for her for myself. The pain is becoming too much.

"No...no...no...Jamal look at me...please. Don't you take your eye off me boy." she screams at a level of panic, I didn't know she was capable of, I must be worse off than I think.

 _ **What the hell happened to me? I feel sick...I'm on fire.**_

"Jamal keep your eyes open, look at me!"

"What happened? Where's dad?"

Questions that I didn t realize I had voiced aloud are suddenly answered like some sublime magic trick, and I hear the timbre of my parent's voices.

"I'm here...I'm fine. You take good care of my boy."

 _ **It hurts.**_

Voices, panicked and raised, something cool flows through my veins as moments pass in flashes.

I hear his voice in my mind as he taunts me, petty rewards and then his core honest truth. He hates me. I'm trash.  
He'd be happier without me.

 _"You ain't nothing to me but a disappointment and the day you die from AIDS, I'm gon celebrate."_

"Jamal open your eyes..." her voice again.

My name again...at least I think it s mine. I'm not so sure anymore. It sounds so far away.

 _ **God it hurts.**_

"Mom I love you...I'm tired. Hafta...close my eyes now..." I hope she heard me, she's my everything. She's always had my back, even when she wasn t there. I'd stare at her picture for hours, wrap up in her coat to smell her sweet perfume...just to be near her. Dad would catch me. Snatch it from me. Tell me to man up, stop being a little bitch. He thought I wanted to wear it, he never let me tell him I just wanted to feel close to her.

I'm sorry Mom. Tell Dad I'm sorry I wasn't perfect. I know I'm a Lyon... I'm trying to fight, but there's a wolf at the door.

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*TBC in part 2*

======================================================================================================= Author Note: Yes I know it was Cookie who ended up with the gun to her head the whole time in the Lola fiasco too, but work with me here, and she didn't put her blue stole under his neck either in Rise by Sin" but WTF, wouldn't you?

*One of my best friends is gay, and I have family and friends that are bi-polar, schizophrenic, and a child with Autism, so no flames about my portrayal here. Get a thicker skin or move on.*

Constructive Criticisms and Reflections Welcomed ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ #TeamCookie is the end and part 2.  
UP next Cookie's part and Carol does something hearbreaking :(


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